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The Japanese government has lashed out at Beijing, condemning an incident wherein a flotilla of Chinese government vessels breached Japan-claimed waters around the around the disputed Senkaku islands in the East China Sea.Tokyo has lodged a formal diplomatic complaint after a Japanese-registered private vessel operating within Japanese-controlled waters was approached by four Chinese Coast Guard ships in the early morning hours of Monday. Tokyo says its coast guard patrols forced the Chinese ships to depart the area.Illustrative file image, via Kyodo NewsThe encounter was tense, based on the description given to US military news outlet Stars & Stripes, which recounted...

The U.S. military will help Japan monitor “unprecedented” Chinese incursions around East China Sea islands controlled by Tokyo but claimed by Beijing as Chinese boats prepare to begin fishing in nearby waters, the commander of U.S. Forces Japan said on Wednesday. “The United States is 100 percent absolutely steadfast in its commitment to help the government of Japan with the situation,” Lieutenant General Kevin Schneider said during an online press conference. “They (Chinese ships) would go in and out a couple of times a month and now we are seeing them basically park and truly challenge Japan’s administration,” he added.

Japan on Monday will switch on a radar station in the East China Sea, giving it a permanent intelligence gathering post close to Taiwan and a group of disputed islands claimed by both Tokyo and Beijing. The new Self Defense Force base on Yonaguni is at the western extreme of a string of Japanese islands in the East China Sea, 150 km (93 miles) south of the disputed islands known as the Senkaku islands in Japan and the Diaoyu in China. “This radar station is going to irritate China,” said Nozomu Yoshitomi, a professor at Nihon University and a former...

Arms Buildup: A senior weapons developer tells Congress that Beijing's massive defense buildup, emphasizing precision-guided and other advanced weapons, has placed the U.S. and its shrinking military at serious risk. 'I am very concerned about the increasing risk of loss of U.S. military technological superiority," Frank Kendall, deputy undersecretary for acquisition, said Wednesday. "We're at risk, and the situation is getting worse." He was testifying before the House Armed Services Committee at a hearing on the subject of defense and technological change. The Chinese were paying attention to U.S. military dominance in the early 1990s after we won the arms...

Defense: War clouds gather in the East China Sea as China, in one of a series of territorial claims against its neighbors, builds a helicopter base within attack range of Japan's Senkaku Islands, which Beijing claims as its own. When President Obama traveled to China last November, we don't suppose that he discussed with his Chinese counterparts their military buildup in the East and South China Seas and their ambitious territorial claims on island chains such as the Spratly, Paracel and Senkaku. As Bill Gertz reports in the Washington Free Beacon, commercial satellites observed construction of a Chinese military helicopter...

Military Spending: In the face of an expansionist China seeking to dominate the East and South China Seas, Tokyo has set its largest defense budget ever to help defend islands that it rightfully considers Japanese territory. As its military, economy and ambitions grow, so too does China's assertiveness about control of the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea and the larger South China Sea. Chinese military doctrine refers to establishing dominance over what it calls the "first island chain," which encompasses the East China Sea. Beijing has long declared the South China Sea to be its territorial waters and has...

Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has signalled a rare attempt to mend fences with China when he appointed two MPs considered friendly towards Beijing to two senior posts in his governing Liberal Democratic party (LDP). […] In his first cabinet reshuffle on Wednesday, Abe also increased the number of female ministers to five—equaling a record set by his LDP predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, in 2001—as part of his program to increase the number of women in the workforce, a key part of his long-term growth strategy. His decision to appoint Sadakazu Tanigaki as LDP’s secretary general, and veteran MP Toshihiro Nikai...

(Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama said that islands at the center of a territorial dispute between Japan and China fall within the scope of the U.S.-Japan security treaty, the Yomiuri Shimbun daily said on Wednesday. Obama, who arrives in Japan later on Wednesday on the first step of a four-nation Asian visit, made the remarks in written replies to questions.

US President Barack Obama has assured Japan that islands at the centre of its territorial dispute with China are covered by a bilateral defence treaty. In an interview ahead of his Asian tour, Mr Obama said the US would oppose any attempt to undermine Japan's control over the islands.

National Security: As the media praised the president for sending two B-52s through disputed air space claimed by China, the administration instructed U.S. airlines to get approval as demanded from the Chinese government. After China declared an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea encompassing the Japanese Senkaku Islands, two U.S. B-52s flew through the claimed air space without informing Beijing. It was an appropriate response. Not so appropriate, however, was the Obama administration's instructions to U.S. carriers that they accede to China's demands for prior notification. China announced last week that all aircraft entering the zone...

TOKYO — China sent its fighter jets into its newly declared air defense zone Thursday on what state media called the country’s first air patrol since it declared control of the airspace. The announcement came hours after Japan and South Korea sent their own military planes into the airspace over the East China Sea, testing China’s resolve to enforce its declaration. The announcement of the flights came just days after unarmed American B-52 bombers flew through the same zone in defiance of China. Beijing later said that it had monitored the American bombers but had chosen not to take action...

BEIJING — China appeared to soften the rules it had issued for its new air defense zone, raising no objection on Wednesday to flights by two American B-52 bombers and Japanese airliners that ignored Beijing’s demands to file advance flight plans and saying only that it had monitored the planes. The subdued initial response came just days after China warned of possible military action if planes did not comply with the rules for flights through a large stretch of airspace it now says it controls over the East China Sea. The unarmed B-52s flew through the newly declared zone overnight...

BEIJING — It was designed as a forceful response to Japanese assertiveness, and a robust declaration of China’s maritime claims. But Beijing’s creation of an air defense zone may have backfired, experts said, after eliciting a strong joint response by the United States and Japan. Instead of strengthening China’s position, the air defense zone has unsettled and united its neighbors. It provided Washington with a perfect opportunity to reassure its Asian allies that it remains committed to maintaining stability in the Asia-Pacific region.

<p>Airlines will have to warn China of their flight plans before entering airspace in the East China Sea, aviation officials have said, after it declared the creation of an "air defence zone" over islands that are also claimed by Japan.</p>

Maritime Grab: Iran isn't the only nuclear threat to worry about. As its military and economy have grown, so too have China's dreams of dominating an island chain centered on Taiwan and including Japan's Senkakus. China's increased belligerence in the region is part of its plan to control the Yellow Sea, the South China Sea and the larger East China Sea. Its military doctrine refers to dominance over the "first island chain," which encompasses the East China Sea. The next step is dominance over what Beijing calls the second island chain extending from Japan to Indonesia. Some analysts have even...

Unlike the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, which faces no existential threat, our Asian ally faces an increasingly belligerent and well-armed China. Yet only one gets the latest weaponry and the question is why. On Jan. 30, a Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force destroyer in the East China Sea near the disputed Senkaku Islands just north of Taiwan was "painted" by fire control-radar from two People's Liberation Army warships, believed to be the Chinese frigates Linyungang and Wenzhou. This was just the latest provocation by a China flexing its deep water naval muscle as it asserts itself in the East and South...

Far East: Wars have started over less weighty issues than the sovereignty of islands in the East China Sea called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China. They are barely rocks above water, but they sit atop valuable resources and are rapidly becoming a flash point as a rising power confronts one whose sun has set. These islands have become involved in a three-way tug of war between China, Taiwan and Japan with each sending fishing boats, even armed vessels, to the area. Private boats from Japan recently journeyed to the Senkakus to plant the Japanese flag one more time....

Defense: Beijing announces another double-digit jump in military spending as the U.S. disarms and sacrifices its defense budget on the altar of entitlement spending. We have many duties; the Chinese have but one target. China announced this week that its military budget this year would rise 11.2% on top of a 12.7% increase last year. This does not bode well as the U.S. defense budget and force levels decline as a result of cuts mandated by our failure to come to grips with runaway spending. As China ramps up military spending, President Obama's budget contains $487 billion in cuts that,...

Defense: China's first flattop begins its sea trials, setting the stage for a fleet that eventually will challenge the U.S. and back up its claims to territory that would make the South China Sea a virtual Chinese lake. Very soon a jet fighter will lift off the deck of a carrier in the Western Pacific. For the very first time its pilot will be Chinese. China sent its first aircraft carrier, the refurbished ex-Soviet Varyag, to sea on Wednesday, virtually unnoticed among the news about the stock market, our credit rating and the debt ceiling debate. It is not yet...

Asian Security: As Korea festers, our friends in Beijing have deployed near Taiwan a powerful missile designed to take out U.S. aircraft carriers as Beijing strengthens its ability to prevent U.S. forces from aiding Taiwan. When North Korea announced the 1953 Armistice was considered null and void and threatened renewed missile tests, the U.S. rushed naval assets to the region, including two destroyers equipped with the Aegis anti-missile defense system. We presumably would do so if things heated up between Beijing and its claimed "lost province," Taiwan. That option became increasingly problematical when news of China's deployment of an anti-ship...